Pieces of Elliott

A brief guide to finding Elliott Smith in Portland.

Southeast 29th Avenue and Taylor StreetThe home where Smith recorded Roman Candle.
According to his then-girlfriend, J.J. Gonson, she returned years later
and knocked on the door to find the Shins’ James Mercer lived there.

Southeast 32nd Avenue and Yamhill StreetLarry Crane’s former house, where he first met Smith
through the singer-songwriter’s girlfriend at that time, musician Joanna
Bolme, who brought him over for a barbecue. Crane and Smith tracked
songs that ended up on Either/Or in the makeshift basement recording space.

Jackpot Recording Studio
Smith helped Crane build his studio at its original
location, the corner of Southeast Morrison Street and 20th Avenue (it’s
since moved to Southeast Division and 50th), where they demoed several
songs and recorded the Oscar-nominated version of “Miss Misery.”

Space Room
The Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard dive was one of the bars
Smith frequented, along with My Father’s Place and Club 21. He and Sean
Croghan hung out there a lot when Smith lived on Southeast Division
Street, getting “very drunk,” putting Johnny Cash on the jukebox and
“crying together” at the bar, Croghan says.

La Luna

Courtesy of Mark Moore

Once the nucleus of Portland’s music scene (now the
location of Japanese restaurant Biwa) and the site of album-release
shows for Elliott Smith and Either/Or, as well as performances by Spudboys—Smith and Croghan’s Devo cover band.

EJ’s
A strip club-turned-rock bar on Northeast Sandy Boulevard,
opened by a dancer, who lived in the apartment upstairs. A favorite
haunt of Smith’s, who once played a Kinks tribute night there, backed by
Quasi. Now a pawnshop.

Bluebird Guesthouse
The “Elliott Smith Room” at this Division Street bed and
breakfast features “an antique desk, cute patterned carpet and replica
fixtures,” according to its website.

Either/Or Cafe
This quaint Sellwood coffee shop, opened in 2013, takes its name from Smith’s 1997 album.

Elliott Smith memorial plaque

IMAGE: Bob Kubeczko

Portland’s only official monument honoring Smith, affixed
to a wall at Lincoln High School, where he graduated in 1987. His
gold-plated visage appears to peer across the hall, forever staring at
an Abraham Lincoln quote painted on the adjacent wall: “People are about
as happy as they make up their minds to be.”